Round Stone Crest The Talk

@ Raela!))
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Sylva trotted out over the snow as she followed Raela’s scent. The ebony yearling had questions..questions that one might usually ask their parents, but for Sylva, that was impossible. Raela was the closest figure that Sylva trusted with questions about the strange beings that were males. after a recent encounter, males had been on her mind lately but she wasn’t sure why. She needed answers and soon she would hopefully have them. She picked up her pace with an excited yip as she caught Raela’s scent and it was stronger than before.

What are we going to say? What if she thinks we’re weird?Syllva worried that maybe this fascination was unusual, what if she was sick? or crazy? what if….She shook her head to clear it of all of these what ifs as she bounded across the snow. There she is! She perked up when she caught sight of the now familiar pelt of her Alpha and she skidded to a stop.

As she stopped she quickly dipped her head to her superior while whispering “Ok..let’s try going about this subtly..” She turned her muzzle toward Raela, trying to figure out the best way to ask. She was silent for a few moments as nothing came to mind then she suddenly blurted out “I have a question about boys…” Quickly her brown gaze fell toward the ground as she breached the subject in such a tactful way, her ears felt hot with embarrassment, but it was out and now all she could do was wait.

ThoughtSylva’s dialogue

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Keeping the borders up wasn't usually so very high on the Queen's list of priorities. She was usually better suited to tracking the herds or scouting for rivals, but something deep in her psyche wanted her to claim this land as hers more vigorously than before. It had to be this seasonal illness telling the woman to assert herself over the others, to secure a right to breed that she wasn't even sure she wanted to take advantage of. She was sure however, that the pack did not need children from anyone else, so at least the behavior was useful in some way. 

It went hand in hand with her more dominant attitude around the subordinate females. All was aimed toward preventing rogue breedings, be it with pack mates or vagabonds. She knew that at least one of their own was in heat as well; Moraxia had shown the same signs and even playfully (but roughly) tussled with the Alpha not a day before to help relieve her own stress. But aside from that everything was in order. The only problem was Raela's continued agitation. She was well preoccupied with digging up the snow and dragging her paws' scent glands over the now bare spot in the earth. Her mind even wandered off so much that she was only vaguely aware of Sylva's approach, and her head actually jerked up at little when the girl spoke. But, it was not the sudden appearance of the yearling that startled her. It was the words. 

A question about boys... Her golden eyes grew wide, staring at the pup in equal parts shock and confusion. Oh no, was this one... It was far too early for the youth to be in a heat of her own and she dismissed the idea immediately. Much more likely, was some sort of childish romance or thing like that. The dark girl had wandered off a bit a few days ago, had something happened? The older woman paused in her work to turn around and speak at last, an amused grin beginning to light her features. "What do you want to know?" She asked lightly, observing how shy the adolescent had suddenly become. The Queen's posture eased out of its usual dominance, happy to be distracted from springtime woes with this interesting little conversation. 

            

@ Raela!))
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The small wolf noticed Raela’s air of amusement and she blinked in confusion. She had been terrified that maybe this was some taboo subject, but maybe it was ok? When the larger female prompted her to go on Sylva became a little more confident, though not by much.

“Well um…..” She paused for a moment, settled down on her haunches. What was it that she wanted to know? Sometimes they seemed like an entirely different species of wolves. What was it that made them so different from the females? They were larger than them but what else? sturdier? “Well um….why are they so different from us? Their so hard to understand sometimes…”

Sylva hadn’t really noticed many differences between the two genders beyond the fairly obvious ones up until she had met @Wraith the other night. “Like...why do they scratch their ears to much?”  That had been one thing Sylva had noticed and she was curious to why. She tilted her head slightly as she tried to think of more questions. There had been one thing that really stuck out when she had interacted with the large black male. “Do they always seem irritated at nothing in particular?” Soft brown eyes turned toward Raela, hopeful that the wise old woman may have answers.

ThoughtSylva’s dialogue

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Sylva seemed to hesitate some, but she soon launched into a set of sentences that went straight from pretty normal to completely bizarre. Raela grinned wider at the first set of questions; those were relatively easy to answer for any wolf who had seen a couple of years. But then the youth started asking why males scratched their ears and the Queens smile rapidly faded once more into deep, deep confusion. How many boys had this girl met to give her such an impression? It couldn't have been many, for Raela had never once heard of someone declaring that all males were overly itchy. Something was very wrong with her understanding of things, and perhaps the girl had been isolated for a bit too long out there in the woods. 

The last query, although more normal on its face was still sort of wrong. Men were usually not just irritated all the time for the heck of it. Sylva finally stopped talking, and the Queen was left staring at her with bemusement. Where did she even begin? "They're... different just because they are really, for the same reason a buck is different than a doe." This was getting uncomfortable fast. She was never one to hide anything from children, and she wasn't about to start now. Still, maybe it was best to feel the pup's knowledge out a bit first. "I'm pretty sure not all men scratch too much," she added with a smirk and a single lowered eyebrow. The idea still made her laugh inside. "And not all of them are mad all the time." Who had this yearling run into out there? "Who made you think that?" The matriarch was genuinely curious now. 

            

@Raela !))
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Sylva plopped down on her furry rump, ears pricked as she listened attentively as Raela began to explain. her small head cocked slightly to an angle as the agouti Alpha compared male wolves to bucks. “Ok…” Sylva bobbed her head up and down, thinking she could understand the difference “So that they can, um you know…” She glanced down toward the snow before quickly murmuring “Continue the species?”

Sylva’s attention quickly danced off of what she saw as an embarrassing topic and focused on Raela’s next explanation “Are you sure? he seemed to scratch his head a lot.” She was opening her muzzle to go into further detail when a small movement caught her attention and her jerked her head toward a nearby tree. After a few moments she realized that it had just been a stray breeze blowing through the trees and she returned her focus onto the larger female just in time to catch her comment.

“Oh um well, I was heading back to Ghastly Woods so that I could settle the debt I owed with the trees. I was thanking them for keeping me safe for the time that I had spent in there when i heard someone speak.” She paused for a moment to draw breath before counting her torrent of words. “At first I had thought it was a phantom, since the woods tend to have a creepy air around them, with the caressing tendrils and all.”

“Anyways, it turned out that it wasn’t a phantom but a giant wolf!” Sylva squeaked as she inhaled deeply, ready to begin the next barrage of the story. “Well, after he promised that he wasn’t going to kill me, we got to talking, but first he fell down and I thought he was dead, but then I realized that dead wolves don’t talk most of the time, so after that, when I was sure that he wasn’t dead, it’s fairly easy to tell after all. Well, after that we got to talking, he asked who I had been talking to and it was fairly easy to explain that I was talking to the trees, he seemed to think that was weird, but I don’t see how, we’ve had some good chats before…”

Yet, again the girl took a deep breath, she had quite a set of lungs on her to be able to speak so much and so quickly as she dove back in head first.“Anyways, by now he had been scratching his head like a lot, I mean a lot!” She paused for a moment, scratching vigorously at her own ears. “Where was I?” she asked, having lost her train of thought. ‘“Oh!” She yipped with a grin. “He was scratching a lot and something seemed to be bothering him, so I asked if maybe he needed some comfort, he said no.” She paused for a moment, biting her lips in sadness before it washed away with the next wave.

“OH! I gotta back up a little bit! When we first met and I realized that he wasn’t a angered spirit mad at me for trespassing on his grave something, I had asked if he needed anything and comfort seemed to draw the most response out of him, but by this point I’ve forgotten where I was going with this…”

The small ebony wolf closed her eyes for a moment as she tried to recall, then with a big grin she bounced up “Oh! Yea! he seemed to get very annoyed or irritated by something, but I wasn’t sure what and after we ended up going our separate ways….”

“I think that's it?” She said, tilting her head slightly before recalling what had happened a couple of hours after that “Oh! That’s when I meant Greer! I was following the creek, which by the way has a very lovely voice.” She added this as an afterthought before continuing “Afterwards, I ended up crossed the creek, it was cold! After getting across, I ended up heading northish, I think it was north, it was north wasn’t it? yea it was!”

Sylva paused to grin for a moment and suck in another breath “Anyways, I sat down under the trees for a bit, because, you can’t just go by those lovely trees and not admire the view! They reminded me of you in a way, rugged but beautiful..Anyways, Sylva, we’re getting off topic again, well, as we sat there, the soft creaking of the bark and the branches swaying had us lost in thought while we contemplated Wraith, oh! Wraith is the wolf we met back in Ghastly Woods! Anyways, while we sat there, we smelled something and down the trek was another wolf! This one we learned was named Greer, he had pretty eyes…”

“I mean..back to the story!” Sylva squeaked quickly “Wraith and Greer both smelled the same, so it made sense that they were from the same pack! Something that I am proud to say that I was able to pick up on, Well, we got to talking and I realized that he seemed to be the dark and brooding type, he liked the quiet, I don’t see why, it’s so hard to speak when no one’s around..I mean, sure the trees make good company, and the plants, oh, don’t get me started on the rocks, some of those things can be so rude!” She paused for a moment, sucking in a deep breath “But, I was able to get seven words out of Greer! I was so happy! I was able to get a silent and broody male to talk!”

Her tail wagged in pure joy at the accomplishment as she suddenly blinked “Um Raela...what was your question..?”The chocolate black wolf settled down onto her haunches, a small but sheepish smile formed on her maw. “You asked who Wraith right..? or was it Greer? or did you ask how my day was..? Whoops..”

ThoughtSylva’s dialogue

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(This post was last modified: Mar 02, 2016, 03:36 AM by Sylva.)

Sylva's quick utterance was more than welcomed. If the girl already knew about the birds and the bees then Raela wouldn't have to explain it again. Great. Unfortunately that was the last bit of perfectly normal conversation they were going to be having today, as then the yearling saw fit to launch into an explanation so long-winded and strange that Raela could not keep one of her eyebrows from drifting skyward. She had been... thanking the trees. That could have rung the alarm bells all by itself, but Sylva insisted on taking it even further. Yes, she had been talking to the trees when some not-dead stranger ran into her. Of course he thought that was weird. 

She could explain that afterwards though. The girl was far from done and Raela was too startled to interrupt. She'd had 'good chats' with the trees... This was getting bad. For a moment the woman began to wonder if the child she had taken in was completely insane. This was beyond anything an adolescent of her age should have been thinking. Notions of spirits and talking trees belonged in the heads of tiny ones, not a yearling. Upon hearing that she had asked the man if he needed comfort, Raela immediately understood why he might have been a little irritable and... strange to her. That wasn't something you just... said, and apparently Sylva was blissfully unaware. How long had she been alone out there? Long enough to have massively underdeveloped social skills apparently.

Now a second stranger entered the scene, and Raela's eyes widened with the sudden compliment. “Rugged but beautiful.” The older woman would have lingered on the statement longer if more confusing dribble didn't continuously pour out of the kid's mouth. Suddenly she had switched to saying “we” instead of “I,” and Raela felt herself growing uncomfortable. Sylva could not be ...alright inside if this is how she really was. The trees came up again, and she was mortified to discover that it was not just the foliage the child talked to, but the rocks as well; and she thought the rocks were... rude. Was she having some heat-induced hallucination or was this conversation really happening?

The Queen's posture had stiffened by now. None of this was sitting well. At last the tide seemed to ebb, and a question was directed her way. The larger woman only stared down with wide eyes. There were so many things swirling around in her head, but the most obvious, glaring issue was cramming itself into her throat. "Sylva," she started carefully, still looking very much in shock, "do you, really talk to the trees... and the rocks?" There was nothing more important to ask at the moment, and Raela was truly afraid of the answer. 

            

@Raela!))
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[Did we...do something wrong..? Sylva wondered as she took notice of her Alpha’s more stiff posture, her question seeming shrugged aside and replaced by one of Raela’s own. The way she asked it started to worry Sylva. Her head tilted slightly to the side as she parted her jaws to answer.

“Yes?” The response had come out more as a question then a straight up answer because Sylva wasn’t sure if she was suppose to lie or not. She did talk with them, they didn’t always respond, but when they did it had sometimes came in some small form, like a rock tumbling down a outcrop, or a branch rustling in the breeze, but sometimes it had been a voice. To the chocolate black yearling, this was talking. Yet, it had not occurred to her that it was assumed that she had meant in a literal sense, using words like she and Raela were right not, and yet, it hadn’t crossed her mind to try and clarify this possible misconception.

The Yearling paused for a moment as a small gap of silence passed between the two of them. She was getting worried, the way Raela was acting, it wa slike...she didn’t know what to think? Why wouldn’t she though? Anyone could hear the rustling of the trees or the soft murmur of the river if they just listened.

Brown eyes suddenly went wide as Sylva stiffened where she sat. Her breathing became a little quicker as she felt her heartbeat racing Oh no..what….what if she….wh-what if she..” She couldn’t even finish the terrifying thought, instead she closed her eyes and tried to keep her breathing under control, she trusted Raela completely, and she begged herself for that trust to be well placed. Slowly, she just sat there, only one word leaving her maw, filled with her fear “Please….”

ThoughtSylva’s dialogue

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(This post was last modified: Mar 04, 2016, 03:21 AM by Sylva.)

Shallow water has trapped several fish in a small pond. Hunt Opportunity

“Yes.” Raela felt her heart sinking. It couldn't be true... She didn't want this for the girl; she had seemed so, well, childish but in no way mental when the Queen had found her in the woods. The confusion on her face, and the way it was slowly melting into fear only made the woman feel worse. Sylva might have been crazy, but she was not a bad wolf, and Raela didn't want to treat her that way. Still, she had to put some effort into remaining calm. The larger female swallowed uncomfortably; another question was begging to be released into the air. 

The pup was shrinking, perhaps realizing that Raela was not taking her seemingly innocent words very well. Concern shaped the woman's expression but her mouth was dry. There was suddenly so much terror in the child's eyes, and it only hurt her more. Her orange ears fell back toward her skull as if it would make her seem less threatening.She didn't want this. But she had to know. A single utterance slipped pleadingly from the dark yearling's mouth, and Raela's hung open in indecision. She didn't want the girl to fear her. Quickly, almost fumbling, her lips tried to work. "The- the," how was she even supposed to do this? Raela's tongue stumbled down a different path instead. "And they, they talk back to you? You hear... voices? Words?" Oh god she hoped she was wrong. 

Her confused babbling seemed useless and she knew it. There was nothing else it sounded like it could be, but she asked anyway, desperate for her to change her answer, to not be ...this. She wouldn't dream of chasing the pup away and condemning her to wander by herself; if anything she needed a pack even more if this was the sort of thing her brain told her was reality. But, it certainly would provide quite the set of difficulties, and Raela was truly worried. She did not want this to turn out like her recruitment of Urien.   

(This post was last modified: Mar 04, 2016, 02:21 AM by Raela.)

            

@Raela ;-;)
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The small wolf’s eyes slowly opened a little as Raela tried to speak yet again, her words coming out as a small jumble of mixed up words. Slowly Sylva realized what she had been asking and she didn’t want to lie. The slow realization that maybe...just maybe she wasn’t normal was starting to scare, no terrify her but she had to be honest.

She eventually found her voice and slowly croaked““Y-yes, t-they’ve always been there...s-si-since I was alone...they didn’t abandon me..they were there for me..they kept safe….we-we…” She stopped for a moment, choking up slightly as a whirlpool of emotions flooded through her, she wasn’t sure what to feel. It just hurt, she was different and now Raela saw it, the one she had come to trust was about to throw her out, at least that's what Sylva had thought was going to happen. “I-Im sorry..I-I don’t want to...to p-put you through anything...I’ll go ma’am….”

Sylva turned her head away, a choking sob raking the small wolf’s body as she was sure that she’d be cast aside, she didn’t want to leave Round Stone Crest, but if it’s what Raela thought was best then she would She slowly pulled herself to her paws and glanced at Raela, her soft brown eyes rimmed with tears“I’m sorry….”

ThoughtSylva’s dialogue

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